So I entered my 24th year of living yesterday.
I think my favorite text I received came from a good friend from college, who said something along the lines of wishing me a happy expulsion-from-the-womb day. We nurses really like the details of birthing, I guess.
What did I do to celebrate over the past couple of days? Let's see…in semi-picture form!
- A friend and I went out to breakfast on Friday morning at my favorite place in town, where I indulged in coffee and a french toast bagel with maple cream cheese.
- Baked my "famous" applesauce muffins (recipe coming soon) and sewed up some burp cloths for a friend's baby shower at church
- Okay, this has absolutely NOTHING to do with celebrating my birthday, but I had to put this in here somewhere… I'd been having the feeling like I had a canker sore on my tongue for the past couple of days but on Friday, it felt like I had several along the edge of my tongue. I looked in the mirror only to be completely disgusted to see these indents all over the sides of my tongue!
Gross, right?
In full panic mode, I called Husband while ferociously scouring the Internet (so medically legit...) and discovered something called "scalloped tongue" that was eerily resembling what I had found in my mouth. Articles and websites kept referring to vitamin and mineral deficiencies, thyroid problems, and infections, all of which kept freaking me out. Long story short, after much discussion and scouring websites with Husband, we concluded I did in fact have scalloped tongue but it was more likely due to stress. Husband also discussed this with one of my brothers-in-law (a family practice doctor) and he concurred (as much as he could without having a full work-up of my medical history and reviewing my symptoms). Pretty much my body rejects the idea of me being under any sort of stress, this and the incidences with my weird keratoconjunctivitis-sicca-and-corneal-keratitis-ridden eyes being proof, so I really just need to calm. down.
Oh, and Husband snapped some lovely screen shots during my post-scalloped-tongue-discovery meltdown of sorts.
So attractive.
Moving on…
- Went to the baby shower on Saturday morning
- Drove to see Husband
- Studied with Husband at the med school
- Watched some dancers at a Hispanic festival going on downtown with my mom, one of my sisters and her family - pictured are the most bold costumes of the day...
- Went back to studying at the med school with Husband (despite the fact that it was only about 70 degrees outside, he cranked that a/c up and took full advantage of it since he doesn't have any where he's living - hence the hoodie)
- Ate out at Bonefish Grill (where I worked my senior year of high school making some darn good money)
- Collapsed in bed
It wasn't the most exciting of birthdays this year, but I expected that due to both my and Husband's chaotic schedules thanks to the world of academia. Husband and I sort of celebrated last weekend anyway with a gift, dinner, and some quiet time at home when he was able to come back for Saturday and Sunday. When it came down to it, I was just thankful to be able to spend time with him, as I always am whenever I get the chance.
Here's to 24 years of life and many more!
I like the veggie bagel sandwich at Good Earth.
ReplyDeleteAnd those pictures of your tongue are disgusting.
So... did the scalloped edges ever go away? I have the same thing... did the same thing as you (scoured the internet for info) and found your blog. Maybe mine is just stress too. I also found out via my internet research that Justin Beiber has it too!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the scalloped edges did NOT go away :( I don't know about you, but for a while it felt like I had canker sores along the sides of my tongue but luckily that subsided eventually. I have heard that it's associated with stress, but I'm not 100% sure. Glad to know I share a medical conundrum with the Biebs, though...ha!
DeleteThanks for your reply! Sorry if this is TMI... but maybe it would be helpful to you?
DeleteI had this continuously for maybe a year? 2 years? and initially I had the same painful feeling as you're mentioning - but I'm pretty sure that was caused by my teeth errr biting? cutting? the sides of my tongue because it was so swollen. And I guess it just got used to it and the pain went away?
The other thing I noticed was that I was pretty bummed out about some weight that I had gained that wouldn't go away... But! The very weird thing is over maybe 3 days all of my symptoms randomly disappeared! All of the "weight" I had gained vanished and my clothes were HUGE! My scallops went away too. And I was fine for like a year.
And then it just all came back! So... based on this we think it might be a water retention thing so I'm looking into chronic dehydration as the cause. I never even considered that before. But the more I looked into it the more it sort of sounded like me. Apparently, your body will go into "camel" mode and store water if you are dehydrated - causing your tongue and body to retain water. The trick is - that I just learned is that if you are in this camel state - your cells no longer absorb water like normal - so when I started to drink more water - it felt like too much - I wasn't even thirsty. They said you have to make sure you're drinking enough throughout the day and eventually your cells will *click* and start accepting the water and come out of camel mode.
They said that this can be caused by stress or a particularly stressful event. Also, look up "Spleen Qi Deficiency" - I'm looking into that too - because the weird tongue is a symptom - as well as stress as a cause. I don't know whether it is legit or not... but if it makes them go away - whatever! : )
Good luck - and please let me know if you figure out how to get rid of it. I really want them to go away! Oh, and if the drinking water thing works for me I'll post back and let you know. *fingers crossed* it works!